Every Second Counts
by Fluff of Dreams
Summary: After the King of Iron Fist Tournament 4, someone arranges to have Jin sent to a place from which he can never return. Xiaoyu is accidentally dragged along for the ride. Xiaoyin
1. Default Chapter

DISCLAIMER: Namco owns Jin Kazama, Ling Xiaoyu and all other characters associated with Tekken. I am just toying with them, and intend no offence.  
  
A/N: My first ever Tekken fic. Hope you enjoy!  
  
P r o l o g u e  
  
Ling Xiaoyu scattered the sand with a dainty kick of her bare foot, watching it sink into the swishing waves. The moon shone a swirling silver pattern on the navy sea, and she took a deep breath of fresh air, relishing the freedom she felt. The night was soft and tender, calming her nerves and aching body. Finally, after a summer of long fighting, the King of Iron Fist Tournament 4 was over.  
  
She carried her sandals at her side and padded silently along the shore, admiring the shimmering water to her right and the mountainside to her left, glittering with a thousand city stars. As far as she knew, there were only two people on the beach that night. Herself and a man standing up ahead, staring out to the horizon, lost in some distant daydream. His hooded jacket was pulled right over his head, shielding him from the outside world. From his fine posture and careful stance, she knew it could only be Jin.  
  
He gave no indication that he either saw or heard her approach, but somehow she felt he knew she was there. Jin had always had some sort of sixth sense about these things. Scraping at the sand with her toes, she hummed a gentle rhythm, some old Chinese hymn she had learnt in childhood. She was in no hurry to reach him. She knew he would wait for her.  
  
When she reached Jin, she took up a similar position beside him, searching the distant waves for what he saw. His breathing was soft, and he seemed at peace. His eyes were vague and glassy, and she knew better than to disturb him when he was in one of his contemplative moods. So she waited, watching the deep blue ocean and the occassional splashes far away from the beach of a dolphin or two. They frolicked happily, swirling their bodies through the water, slapping their tails in glee. She grinned to see them so carefree.  
  
"How are you, Xiao?" Jin asked eventually, inclining his head in the slightest movement towards her.  
  
"I'm okay," she said automatically.  
  
"I won," he stated quietly, still looking out towards the sea, still lost in his thoughts.  
  
"I know," she replied, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips, "Did you kill him?"  
  
"I couldn't," he said.  
  
"I know," she told him, with a mixture of sympathy and pride.  
  
They fell into a companionable silence. She wondered if he was watching the dolphins like herself, but he seemed to have his sights set on a goal much further out to sea. A sense of floating peace spread through her body, and her eyes fluttered shut for just a moment, unwinding in the cool evening air. Then she shivered.  
  
Jin put out an arm automatically and pulled her to him, and she allowed her head to rest back on his shoulder, enjoying the warmth he offered. They stood there for a moment, before she felt the need to begin questioning him.  
  
"What you gonna do now?" She asked without turning to face him. She felt him shrug slightly at the query, as he always did when asked something.  
  
"I think I might travel," he informed her after a while, "What about you?"  
  
She shook her head in a brief, helpless moment, and sighed. "Dunno."  
  
"You could build your theme park," he suggested. Her eyebrows wrinkled at the notion, and she thought of all the overwhelming constraints on that idea.  
  
"No money," she stated.  
  
"You could use some of mine. I own the company now," he replied.  
  
"I couldn't take your money," she said sadly, "It's yours."  
  
Jin, for the first time, turned to face her, and put both hands on her shoulders. He swirled her around and looked directly into her eyes.  
  
"Don't give up like that, Xiao," he said firmly, "And don't refuse a fair offer. It offends me. I don't need the money – my dreams have nothing to do with finance. Yours do."  
  
"But..." she began.  
  
"If you truly want to meet your dreams, Xiao, then you must meet them yourself," he said, "No one can meet them for you."  
  
She fell silent, and lowered her eyes from the serious stare of his. His words made sense, and she valued Jin's opinion very much. He had never given her bad advice, and never lied to her. He had always stated the truth in the way he saw it, and she knew that Jin's vision was far wider ranging that her own.  
  
"Maybe," she muttered under her breath.  
  
Jin gave her the briefest of smiles, and it lit up his face for a moment. Then the shadow was down again, the clouded expression back.  
  
She returned the smile and pushed herself up onto her tip toes, brushing a tiny, soft kiss against his cheek in gratitude. She felt lighter immediately. Hopeful, optimistic. Perhaps she could make her dreams come true all by herself. She did not need Heihachi or his tainted wealth. If she set her sights firmly on her goal, then maybe one day it would come true, as Jin said it would.  
  
Pulling back, her brows furrowed into a frown. Jin's expression had changed from one of fondness and friendship to one of confusion.  
  
"Jin, what is it?" She asked, stepping away so as to see him better.  
  
"Did you feel that?" He questioned her, his eyes darting to the ground and back to hers, then to their surroundings. She shook her head in reply.  
  
All of a sudden, it seemed as though his face twisted in agony, his features contorted by some all-consuming force. He staggered back and groaned, and she started in alarm.  
  
"Jin?"  
  
"Get away," he said through gritted teeth, his hand flying to his stomach.  
  
The last thing she noticed was his eyes fly to hers, wide open and searching, before a brilliant blue light flashed over the beach, lighting it for an instant and blinding her. She cried out his name in fright, and the blue light closed into a bubble around him.  
  
"Jin! Jin!!" She called, at a loss, her heart gripped with sudden panic.  
  
Inside the bubble, Jin stumbled, his eyes flashing in pain, his cheeks twitching under the strain of controlling himself. Ling's eyes widened in horror and she looked around desperately, searching for someone to help. But they were alone, completely alone. No one could help but her.  
  
She did not have time to wonder what was happening. Jin began to fade, and then he became clear again, and then he faded again, as though he was a blinking light on a dashboard.  
  
"Jin!!" She shouted, one last time, hoping to distract him. He did not even react, crumbling under the pressure.  
  
In one blind moment of heroism, she took a deep breath, steadied herself, and leapt with all the bravery she could muster into the icy blue bubble, hoping to pull him out.  
  
Nothing could have prepared her for the overwhelming crushing force on her body. She felt as though she would pop like a balloon, and she let out a faint cry before collapsing on Jin.  
  
Together, they stumbled and fell.  
  
Then everything went black.  
  
* * *  
  
Hope you liked! Chapter One should be up soon. Please review :) 


	2. Chapter One

DISCLAIMER: Namco owns Jin Kazama, Ling Xiaoyu and all other characters associated with Tekken. I am just toying with them, and intend no offence.  
  
C h a p t e r O n e  
  
Ling's eyes fluttered open, and she winced in pain. Her body ached from head to toe, and she knew it wasn't from the rigours of the tournament. Her legs were numb, sizzling with pins and needles, but in attempting to roll over she encountered a heavy weight pinning her to the ground.  
  
"Ugh, Jin..." she mumbled, shoving him roughly but unable to move him from his current crushing position.  
  
"Jin!" She moaned, giving him a gentle slap on the cheek in an attempt to wake him.  
  
His head suddenly snapped up, his eyes wide open, and for a moment they buzzed wildly in confusion. Then he looked down at her, and she raised her eyebrows at him emphatically, trying to gesture to her trapped legs. In an instant he leapt to his feet, with a hiss at the pain in his muscles, and then held out a hand to help her up. She took it gratefully and was unceremoniously dragged to her feet.  
  
"You okay?" He said absently, surveying the surroundings with a preternatural instinct.  
  
She nodded her head vaguely, also looking around to see what situation they were in, or any indication of who had sent the punishing blue bubble to capture Jin.  
  
Strangely, it seemed as though they had not moved an inch. The beach was still bathed in dark blue tones, the waters still rippled in shallow waves, the sand was still holding the hot day's warmth beneath her bare feet. At some point she had dropped her shoes, but looking around, she could not find them.  
  
She looked up at the stars, half expecting them to have disappeared. But Orion's belt – the only one she knew – was hovering just above the horizon as it had always done. As far as she could tell, nothing but a big bunch of pain had happened. They were still on the same beach. She frowned and looked towards her companion for answers.  
  
Then she noticed something over his shoulder. Or rather nothing, which was strange. There was supposed to be a pier there, dazzling with flickering lights, drifting melodies out across the bay. But the pier had disappeared, and in its place there was nothing, just the continuous beach stretching off as far as she could see. An eerie feeling of unease settled on her as she followed the line of where the pier should have been, hoping her suspicions were wrong, and found another load of nothing.  
  
The mountain was still there, looming over the beach with majesty as it had done for thousands of years. But where street lamps and cosy living room lights usually lit its slopes, there was darkness. She could just make out a thick forest climbing up the rocky gradients, but nothing else. The city had poofed into thin air, by the looks of it. The beach suddenly felt very black, spooky, and silent. Too silent.  
  
She grabbed Jin's arm and pointed to the mountain. He took a step forward, peering closer as though the city would suddenly reappear before his eyes. Ling eventually got impatient.  
  
"There's supposed to be a city there, isn't there?!" She said in a shrill voice, unable to disguise the rising panic, "I mean, I don't know about you, but I can distinctly remember a city being right on that mountainside. And a pier over there," she jabbed her finger to where the pier used to be, "And my sandals!" She finished with a wail, pointing to the sand where her shoes were depressingly absent.  
  
"Me too," Jin said quietly.  
  
"Me too what?" She quizzed, her mind in a flurry.  
  
"I remember a city being there too," he clarified.  
  
Taking another couple of steps forward, Jin stopped and his shoulders slumped. Ling pushed herself across the soft white sand with her bare feet, shaking her legs occassionally to rid the grains from her tracksuit bottoms. Stopping beside him, she looked up expectantly at his shadowy features, hidden inside his jacket. He seemed spookily unaffected by this turn of events, and it annoyed her.  
  
"So?" She said, hoping to prompt him into action. He said nothing in reply.  
  
She sighed and scuffed at the white beach with her foot.  
  
"Just let me think," he said in a slow, guarded tone of voice.  
  
"Think quicker," she grumbled.  
  
She attempted a stretch to ease her muscles, but every joint seemed to crunch at once, and she crippled over with a grunt of annoyance and a hiss of pain. She was stiff as hell, and the cold night air was beginning to bite at her skin. And she had no footwear. No footwear! Jin flicked his eyes towards her in a brief effort at sympathy, and proceeded to sigh deeply, as if finally he was resolving to speak. Her ears perked up in hope.  
  
"I think we should walk," he said carefully.  
  
"Walk where?" She asked, her heart sinking.  
  
"To the first sign of civilization we see," he explained.  
  
She cast around for an argument, frightened for her poor bare feet. Sand was okay, but sticks and stones?  
  
"What if we go in the wrong direction?" She asked petulantly, fighting the temptation to pout.  
  
Jin gave her one of his serious, no-foolishness-tolerated looks, and then began walking towards the mountain with a determined stride, leaving her standing alone. She mouthed uselessly at him, and took a longing look over the shore, hoping to see a pair of shoes sticking out of the sand in the distance. No such luck.  
  
With a heavy shake of her head, she picked her way across the grainy beach after him.  
  
"Jin-Jin?" She cooed sweetly, to where he was progressing towards the stony edge of the beach.  
  
"Yes?" He called back.  
  
"What size shoe are you?" She asked in what she thought might be an innocent tone.  
  
"I'd rather carry you," he said simply, and continued.  
  
Ling narrowed her eyes, shot a few mental daggers at his back, and stumbled and tripped her way after him.  
  
* * *  
  
The worn footpath they found was steep and wooded, and a hundred thousand leafy trees seemed to tower over the two of them. Ling felt as though they would be trapped on this eternal, endless route upwards for the rest of their lives, never reaching an end, unable to go back down. Jin trod the path up ahead with square determination. He was sure that this pointless route would take them somewhere. Though she gritted her teeth and tried to keep up with him, she started to lag behind after only a few minutes. It wasn't that she was unfit – far from it – but her feet hurt.  
  
"I *am* trying not to be annoying," she said, "But my feet really hurt. Can we stop for a minute?"  
  
Jin obediently stopped dead still and waited for her to catch up. He didn't look annoyed or impatient. He was blank, his expression unreadable. How did he manage to do that? She wondered absently.  
  
"Not that there isn't a good view from up here," she said, then frowned, "Or at least there would be if I could see a damn thing, but are you sure this path is leading us somewhere? Maybe we should go back down. You never know – the bubble thing might come back, and if we jumped into it then the city and my sandals would come back, and we wouldn't want to miss that would we?"  
  
"I don't think it sent the city away," he replied quietly. He was looking around for something.  
  
"What do you mean?" She asked, "There's no city here. Unless you see something I don't, but you already said you didn't, so I'm assuming we see the same things, which means it sent the city away!"  
  
Jin walked off a bit and sat down on a fallen log. Relieved, Ling hobbled over and joined him. He began taking his shoes off. Her eyes lit up.  
  
"Oh Jin! I knew you cared," she said happily.  
  
"I meant that I think the bubble sent *us* away," he continued.  
  
She held out her hands to receive the shoes, but instead he handed her his socks. She wrinkled her nose in distaste. "Jin, I'm not holding your socks," she pointed out.  
  
"They're for you to wear," he explained.  
  
She looked at the socks, dirty and sweaty, and frowned incredulously. "You can't be serious?"  
  
He looked at her, seriously.  
  
"But – Eeuw!" She shrank away from them.  
  
"Look at your feet," he said. She peered down at her feet. They throbbed from the battle with the hill. There was a trickle of dried blood between her toes where she had cut it on a stone, and they were covered with dust and dried mud.  
  
"Besides," Jin carried on, "My shoes would be too big and you'd fall off the mountain and die."  
  
"Okay, okay," she muttered, snatching the socks away while he put his shoes back on, "Drama queen."  
  
"What?"  
  
"So you think the bubble sent us away?" She questioned, wriggling her toes inside the socks.  
  
Jin nodded his head, deep in thought, and then stood up and started walking up the hill again. Taking his socks for an initial test drive, Ling had to admit it was better than before.  
  
So they continued on up the mountainside. The moon eventually disappeared from view as the trees came to a pinnacle overhead, and it grew quite black. Ling made more of an effort to keep up with Jin, and desolately wondered where the bubble had sent them. It had looked like the same beach, true, but there was so much shore in Japan that it could have been different. She couldn't really remember. Her feet were still aching.  
  
A rustle in the undergrowth tore her attention back to the outside world, and she peered suspiciously at the trees. Her companion turned his head too, but did not stop walking. She took a deep breath and clenched her fists. If anyone was waiting to ambush them, they wouldn't stand a chance. Her Hakke Sho and Hika Ken had improved greatly over the tournament, and she knew Jin was as wired as he had always been. Just let the attackers come.  
  
But nothing emerged from the bushy trees, and they carried on cracking and shaking in the high mountain wind. The sounds of twigs snapping as they hit against other twigs, small animals scurrying about their furry business and tree trunks creaking in their constant battle up the hillside were all the comfort they had.  
  
She looked up, hopeful of seeing the stars, but the sight of closed leaves prevented her from doing so. This sucked. It was so dark now, she couldn't even see Jin in front of her, but the sound of his heavy footsteps alerted her to his presence. As soon as they vanished, she would start worrying. It was a silly thought, but after a whole city disappearing before her very eyes, she wasn't going to get complacent.  
  
"So, Jin, how's this for travelling?" She said cutely into the darkness, weary of the silence that had descended between them.  
  
She received a grunt for her troubles, and imagined him shrugging his shoulders in accompaniment.  
  
"This would be a nice place for a theme park," she mused, imagining a roller coaster winding up the hillside, little souvenir shops tucked underneath its steely heights.  
  
No answer. Just footsteps.  
  
"Yeah, I can see it now," she carried on, "Roller coaster here, rapids over there, big old merry go round down there. There'd be people in little panda outfits doing the entertainment, and balloons floating off into the distance. I'm make them floaty so that when the little kids let go, they wouldn't be able to get them back, and they would cry so much that their parents have to buy them another one. More money for me," she giggled.  
  
Still nothing.  
  
She narrowed her eyes in determination. "And you could have your very own show, demonstrating karate to fat fathers and ambitious kids and drooling mothers. You'd make me rich!"  
  
"What?" She heard a disbelieving voice from way up ahead. She hadn't realised she'd got so far behind. She hurried to catch up.  
  
"You know you'd enjoy it," she teased.  
  
"Xiao, I'm not doing that," he said firmly, "Not in a million years."  
  
"Ah, Mr Grumpy," she grinned surreptitiously, "I think you'd be good at it."  
  
"Don't even..."  
  
Jin trailed off and she bumped into his back. She let out a muffled exclaimation and dodged around him. Something new could be seen up ahead.  
  
There was a clearing, and there were lights. She started in excitement, and then a frown creased her features as they both took a few cautious steps towards the clearing.  
  
The lights were lanterns, hanging outside wooden buildings. It was the tiniest little settlement, nestled into the mountain like a baby cuddled to it's mother. The buildings were clustered around what looked like a market, dead and lifeless like the night, and not a soul could be seen wandering about. Then, further up, she noticed a building. It was a beautiful Kansai palace.  
  
A low mist hung about the ground, and the faint rush of a waterfall could be heard from up ahead. Searching the buildings for any sign of life, she saw none. But her jaw dropped in surprise at some horses stabled by the side of what looked to be a cottage.  
  
She put a hand on Jin's shoulder in alarm, trying to stop herself from shaking. She said the first thing that came into her mind.  
  
"Okay, Jin, I never really listened in history at school," she stammered, "But this looks like, well, *it*."  
  
* * *  
  
Hope you liked. Please review! 


End file.
